Bohmian trajectories of Airy packets

Journal Article · Mon Sep 15 04:00:00 EDT 2014 · Annals of Physics (New York)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/J.AOP.2014.05.021· OSTI ID:22403387

Miret-Artés, Salvador ^[1]

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1. Instituto de Física Fundamental, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Serrano 123, 28006 Madrid (Spain)

The discovery of Berry and Balazs in 1979 that the free-particle Schrödinger equation allows a non-dispersive and accelerating Airy-packet solution has taken the folklore of quantum mechanics by surprise. Over the years, this intriguing class of wave packets has sparked enormous theoretical and experimental activities in related areas of optics and atom physics. Within the Bohmian mechanics framework, we present new features of Airy wave packet solutions to Schrödinger equation with time-dependent quadratic potentials. In particular, we provide some insights to the problem by calculating the corresponding Bohmian trajectories. It is shown that by using general space–time transformations, these trajectories can display a unique variety of cases depending upon the initial position of the individual particle in the Airy wave packet. Further, we report here a myriad of nontrivial Bohmian trajectories associated to the Airy wave packet. These new features are worth introducing to the subject’s theoretical folklore in light of the fact that the evolution of a quantum mechanical Airy wave packet governed by the Schrödinger equation is analogous to the propagation of a finite energy Airy beam satisfying the paraxial equation. Numerous experimental configurations of optics and atom physics have shown that the dynamics of Airy beams depends significantly on initial parameters and configurations of the experimental set-up.

• OSTI ID: 22403387
• Journal Information: Annals of Physics (New York), Journal Name: Annals of Physics (New York) Vol. 348; ISSN 0003-4916; ISSN APNYA6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ATOMIC PHYSICS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS
OPTICS
QUANTUM MECHANICS
SCHROEDINGER EQUATION
SPACE-TIME
TIME DEPENDENCE
TRAJECTORIES
WAVE PACKETS